In
the eyes of the upperclass, the working class was dependent on
them for political leadership. However their action in the Revolution of 1830 displayed
that they had well formulated political ideas of their own.

In
the revolution of 1830, the workers fought for their own liberty:
the freedom to work in the trade in which they were trained,
and for better working and living conditions.

The
Revolution of 1830 was very important for the working class revolutionaries

It allowed the workers to find
their voice in society and politics.

It acted as an important catalyst
for the development of workers' demands and organizations

After the revolution the workers
became a permanent and increasingly organized force in Paris

Political
Ideologies of the Workers in 1830

The
workers ideologies actually paralled those of their sans-culottes
fathers in 1789:

They hated priests, nobles, and the royalists

They loved the nation, the army, and the
legend of napolean :

In fact many fighting in 1830 were veterans
from the Napolean wars

The
workers struck out at the Bourbons, the nobles, the priests,
just as their precursors had, but the workers in 1830 had another
grievance:

the forces of the industrialization
that threatened to deprive them of their dignity and status.

Political Action After The Revolution

The
revolution gave the working class confidence to ask for what
they believed they had won at the barricades. Most demands concerned
working conditions, which effected the lower classes most:

Wanted government to protect their jobs
and their standard of living

Set fixed wages and hours, Shorter workday
- 10 hr. day

Wanted the government to enforce contracts
between employer and employee

Demanded a cure of all economic ills,
which meant higher pay

Insisted that the state create more jobs
and employers keep their workshops open

Wanted the end to indirect taxes, especially
those on wine

Lower maximum price on bread

The workers disliked foreign workers,
and not just from other countries, but also from other provinces
and counties, and wanted them removed from their provinces.

Upper class Reaction to Workers' Political
Action

The
middle class was shocked that the working class would make demands
on the political leaders and expect change. The conflicting goals
of the artisan workers and the new "bourgeois monarchy"
resulted in confusion, because neither group understood or cared
where the other was coming from. In reality, the working class
crowd was uninvolved in the quarrel between the government and
its elite antagonists:

"thousands of Paris
workingmen during the depression years of the late 1820s and
early 1830s had specific grievances - lack of work, low wages,
the high price of bread - that had nothing to do with the dispute
. . . between the monarchy and the counter-elite" (Pinkney ).

The
upper classes failed to realize that the working class had an
agenda all of their own, and underestimated the power that the
lower class had politically. For the working class, their work
was their priority. They fought for their own liberty: the freedom
to work at your trained specialty. They fought for the dignity
of their class and their men.

The
revolution of 1830, as seen in Les
Miserables, was the starting point for the workers involvement
in politics, for it allowed the workers to unify and demand their
rights, and by doing so, showed the upper classes that the working
class too had a voice in French society.